I am currently in a state of shock.  I just received in the mail yesterday one of our high-school's quarterly "newsletters" which includes, unfortunately, the names of classmates who have passed on.  That's how I learned of Karen's so untimely passing.

Karen and I went to high-school together (Evanston Township) and were Music Department "buddies" in numerous musical organizations.  Karen was truly at home on the stage -- I actually just finished listening to a CD copy of a "Highlights" record from our senior year in high-school -- I heard her marvelous voice as she took center stage so many, many times.  All of those who had the pleasure of working with her later on truly can agree that she was a definite multi-talented, really sweet person.  As I write this the tears are flowing.  I remembered I had a photograph which taken of us at the start of our 25th high-school reunion weekend -- it will now certainly become one of my treasured items.  To all of Karen's family, and to all of those whose lives were touched by her existence, you were blessed.  I'm just so, so sad.

I was in a show with Karen several years ago, "Over the River and Through the Woods" with Senior Rep. of Ohio, where she played my Grandmother. She was a treasure to know and work with, always positive and always wearing that infectious smile. Ever since that show I have referred to Charlie, Ron, Bev and Karen as my "Grams" and "Gramps". We all in the Columbus Theatre community feel and share your loss.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Karen’s family and friends.  Karen and I met in Columbus working for a local theatre company - Karen, the triple threat actress, and me, the stage manager.  This was the first of many times Karen and I would pair up for shows including traveling to New York to put on a show for the NYC Fringe Festival.  
Karen loved the stage and audiences loved watching her perform.  Whether it was opening night or the 27th time she had done a production, each show was exciting, challenging, and new to her.  Her passion often expanded outside of acting, helping with costumes, props, even sweeping the stage if she saw I got too busy.  I was fortunate enough to be her stage manager for ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’, a show that she constantly said she did not direct, just helped with, but we all know that it was her direction that helped the show go on to win awards for best actor, production and director.  Underneath all of Karen’s talent’s stood a remarkably brave, kind, humble, and passionate soul.  Anyone who met her immediately loved her.  Columbus has lost a theatrical legend, and I a friend.  My love and prayers are with you, Karen, and your family!  
Love, Keri Godsey-Mack and Alexander Mack

July 15, 2010

I am in a sea of memories . . .

At the Estes Avenue apartment where I lived for my first five years, Karen and I had lunch together often, as our back doors shared the porch over the space between buildings where we played wall-ball. Betty (Karen's mother) made us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Campbell’s soup, and fig noodles for dessert. Karen loved fig noodles, which fascinated me because they made me gag. They still make me gag . . . but I think happily of Karen every time a Fig Newton presents itself and I don’t eat it. I laugh about it now, which makes me remember Betty’s laugh—and Karen’s laugh, which was so much like her mom’s.

We played with cut-out dolls and jacks and coloring books endlessly, especially after we moved to the little house on Ashland and the Johnsons to the much bigger apartment on Seely, which I can still see as clear as yesterday. The back porch overlooked (from a great height, it seemed) a little city park that had a terrific sandbox, the location of endless works of dreadful sand art. It amazed me that Karen was so good at castles, because she was awful at cutting out paper dolls. Couldn’t stay on the lines and was a frightfully messy colorer as well. I was too young to understand the difference between small and large muscle development, so I vacillated between frustration and fury. How could she play the piano and sing so well when she couldn’t stay on the damn lines? I’ve spent a lifetime since learning to live outside the lines--Karen had that figured out when we were seven.

We had sleepovers at which I recall sitting cross-legged on the bottom bunk of her bed having serious discussions over the terminology of the bedtime prayer. It has since been changed to make it less terrifying to little people, but when David said in his e-mail that Karen didn’t fear death, I wasn’t surprised. She didn’t back then, either. That awful if-I-should-die-before-I-wake line terrified me when I was eight, but it didn’t bother Karen at all. 

When we were about ten, Karen talked me into joining a troupe of some kind at the Lutheran Church she went to--she had a beautiful clear alto voice and for some reason I lusted after what I oddly perceived as the more glorious goal of being a soprano. I was neither, in fact, but grew up to adore the alto/contralto voice that was Karen. As an adult I can’t listen to a soprano without cringing, which my son, Cameron, a pianist and music professor, cannot comprehend. I often wonder if it’s because I always simply preferred listening to Karen.

Karen’s dad’s was the first funeral I ever attended. His car was the only vehicle outside a bus or el train I ever rode in until I was a teen. We couldn’t afford a car . . . so it was the Ashland Avenue bus and a transfer at Howard Street to get to her house on Seely. Which I did regularly. I can’t play dominoes, cut paper dolls with my granddaughter, or build sand castles to this day without feeling Karen’s presence.

My family and I went to every show Karen did at Evanston High and Northwestern, always enthralled at the metamorphosis that turned little Kardo (my dad’s nickname for her) into an accomplished musical actress. I never caught the performing bug. Funny, but two of my three kids and two of my grandkids did. Who’d have thought! But since my first “live” theater was Karen at Evanston Township High, her shadow is always with me no matter who I watch on stage.

Karen was my best girlhood buddy, the teen friend I held in awe, and bridesmaid at my wedding. In the forty-four years since then we've both led rich, but separate, lives which seem to have re-connected only at moments of family crisis or geographical serendipity.

Right now those 44 years have evaporated. Our childhoods were so intertwined, our development into young women so inextricably connected, that I simply cannot imagine a world without Karen in it. Certainly my childhood is unimaginable without her, and despite the years and distance, there is a part of me, the childhood me, that will be always be 
bruised and bereft.  She was very well

As a neighbor, it was such a pleasure to have Dave, Karen and Johnny stop by for a chat.  Not so long ago, Karen and I had a nice quiet moment in the garden with nature at its best. Karen made the world a better place.  She will be missed dearly by all.
Rita Romine and Rob Van Evra

I am blessed to have worked for Karen at Nationwide Financial.  She gave me opportunities to sharpen my skills, while challenging and encouraging me along the way.  It was a pleasure to have worked with her; and I often look back on my days at Nationwide with fond memories of a caring supervisor.  I know it's late, but ... Thanks Karen!

Sincerely,
Tamra Beaty

OBITUARIO

Karen Elizabeth Carpenter

30 julio, 1945 – 14 julio, 2010

Schoedinger Midtown

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